Originally Posted by SEC_Chick
So here's the weekend update regarding the weekend developments in the GOP primary.
Tennessee: Trump won 39% of the vote in Tennessee, and was awarded 57% of the state’s delegate total. Most delegates were voted on and elected by name as part of the voting process. The remainder are “at large” – which means selected by the state party but bound to vote for a given candidate in the first round of voting. They are not bound in any subsequent round of voting, so you would think that Trump would have an interest in getting his people in and having a decent working relationship with the Tennessee GOP. But the campaign has instead acted as their candidate and been rather insulting towards the TN GOP. Perhaps in response, some of the at large delegates bound to Trump are pretty much straight up NeverTrumpers, and will definitively not be voting for him on a subsequent ballot. In retaliation, the Trump campaign asked its supporters to crash an executive meeting of the state GOP this weekend and Trumplings responded, complete with death threats against TN GOP members. Who could have guessed that being a jackass to people can have consequences? The delegate selection phase is where the Trump campaign should be learning this lesson, but they clearly are not.
North Dakota: The 25 North Dakota delegates were elected this weekend, and while they are all officially unbound, all but 6 were on the Ted Cruz slate. The remaining 6 delegates were people like the Governor and his wife, and a couple with unknown allegiance. But it appears a shutout for Trump, and at least 20 of the delegates are solid Cruz or at least NeverTrump.
Arizona: It seems the Cruz campaign is the only one that has been active at the Arizona delegate elections to ensure the 58 elected delegates are not Trump supporters. Cruz supporters are, of course, preferred, but the most important thing is that while they are bound on the first ballot, the will not vote for Trump on any subsequent ballot. Those delegate elections are happening now, so we will find out later this month how many of the 58 delegates Trump will retain after the first ballot. Cue up more Trump whining about stolen delegates due his failure to acknowledge that this whole thing has rules, and Trump’s crap campaign manager is doing a crap job at following them.
Wisconsin will be a lock for Cruz tomorrow and I am now pretty confident Trump won't win on the first ballot. After last week it seems the establishment types who hate Cruz are finally coming to the conclusion he would not be worse for the party than Trump. I am still fearful they'll try somebody crazy, but Reince Priebus promises the nominee will be someone running for president, FWIW.
I watched the first half of the Libertarian debate televised on Friday (the rest will be this week). As it turns out Gary Johnson lost some points. It was entertaining to watch crazy weirdo/antivirus software pioneer/person of interest in a murder/extradited to the US John McAfee, especially on tech issues, but he hid the insanity well for an hour. My new second choice to Cruz is 35 year old Austin Peterson, who came off a bit too polished, like a Marco-bot, but is a pro-life libertarian.
I still think on the long chance that Trump is the nominee, I am interested in the idea of Rick Perry running 3rd party. He would only need to get on the ballot in Texas, and while he wouldn't win the presidency or maybe even win TX, he would sure as heck keep the TX electoral college votes out of Trump's tiny, stubby-fingered hands.
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